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Incarceron by Catherine Fisher (view source)
Revision as of 13:43, 3 April 2018
, 13:43, 3 April 2018no edit summary
When both Finn and Claudia find identical crystal keys, they are able to communicate with one another. And they set upon a path that will make Incarceron and Outside collide...
Interestingly, ''Incarceron'' isn't set in a particular future - it could be Earth, it could be some fictional world - but its themes are both universal and specific. Liberty, free speech, propaganda and the search for both personal truths and the truths hidden by those in authority are very contemporary issues but also represent age old debates. You can see Alan Garner in these themes, but you can also see adult writers such as Margaret Atwood. In fact, a lot of the time, ''Incarceron'' reminded me of Atwood's [[''The Handmaid's Tale]] '' in its world's rejection of technology and insistence on archaic and feudal relationships.
The narrative is tense and fast-moving with a real atmosphere of menace and the twin worlds juxtapose wonderfully to create equally failing environments. The Prison is a Mad Max world of feral and failed industrialism while the Outside is stifling, corrupt and unequal. Escaping from one to the other is really little more than leaping from the frying pan into the fire. Yet there is hope, and it lies in Claudia and Finn. Their journeys of personal discovery may well be filled with pain, but they are the path to a better future. And it is this bildungsroman aspect of ''Incarceron'' which is its real hook. By the end, readers are desperately rooting for Claudia and Finn in a barnstorming rollercoaster ride. I loved it.